1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image reproducing apparatus for reproducing the image data recorded on a recording medium by use of an electronic camera.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the reproduction (for example, printing) of the image information recorded by use of conventional cameras using silver salt photographic materials, it is a general practice to compensate for the color temperature or the like so as to achieve image reproduction as precisely as possible. However, because the compensation must be conducted using a compensation value presumed from the image information recorded on the recording medium, it is difficult to precisely reproduce the image information and, in spite of steady improvements being made in compensation theory, it often happens that the presumed value is completely wrong. To eliminate the disadvantage of the conventional system and obtain a precisely reproduced image, it would be effective to record the data necessary for image reproduction processing on the same recording medium on which the object image information is recorded and to reproduce the image information compensated on the basis of the recorded compensation data. However, it is impossible with the conventional cameras using silver salt photographic materials to record the data necessary for image reproduction processing on the same recording medium on which the image information is recorded.
More recently, an attempt has been made to develop an electronic camera using an image pickup device such as a charge coupled device (CCD), pickup tube or the like. In the electronic camera, the light information is once converted to an electric signal by the image pickup device, and the obtained electric signal is then recorded on a recording medium such as magnetic tape. Accordingly, with the electronic camera, it is possible to easily record various other data on the same recording medium on which the object image information is recorded, by converting the data to electric signals. Further, even if all of the various kinds of non-image data, for example photographing data such as date of photographing, shutter speed, aperture value, frame number, place of photographing, name of photographer and object, and various kinds of memo data or the like, are input to the system, the quantity of the electric signals converted from them and encoded is very small compared with that of the electric signals converted from the object image information. For example, all of the above-mentioned non-image data can be recorded with a signal quantity equivalent to between several picture elements and several tens of picture elements of the digitized object image information. This level of signal quantity is obviously very small compared with the signal quantity of the object image information which generally corresponds to between tens of thousands of picture elements and hundreds of thousands of picture elements. Accordingly, if the data for compensation in image reproduction, for example data on color temperature, address of defective picture element occurring when the image pickup device is manufactured or the like are used as the above-mentioned non-image data, it is possible to precisely carry out compensation on the basis of the compensation data during image reproduction in the image reproducing apparatus.